A Different Hathttp://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com
A Different Hat BlogsMon, 09 Jan 2017 17:33:52 +0000en-UShourly1The last posthttp://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2015/02/09/the-last-post/
http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2015/02/09/the-last-post/#commentsMon, 09 Feb 2015 07:34:01 +0000http://wordpress.hbpl.co.uk/adifferenthat/?p=3261This is my last post on this blog as ‘A Different Hat’ on Brand Republic.

Since just before the last General Election to just before this I have tried to show that:

]]>This is my last post on this blog as ‘A Different Hat’ on Brand Republic.

Since just before the last General Election to just before this I have tried to show that:

1. The skills, consumer understanding and creative talent of the marketing services industry could be better applied for the good of society as a whole.

2. Even with no money, people at the bottom of society (D/Es), particularly the underprivileged and disabled, deserve to be talked to and treated with all the consideration, care and understanding that commercial advertisers apply to their customers.

This is the last of four posts which provide a new, more creative way of funding the NHS.

So far, I have proposed:

1. That NHS services be more clearly divided into ‘treatment’ and ‘care’
2. That NHS care services be integrated with – and managed by – the charity sector
3. Tax incentives to encourage people to contribute generously to a new National Care Service

This is the last of four posts which provide a new, more creative way of funding the NHS.

So far, I have proposed:

1. That NHS services be more clearly divided into ‘treatment’ and ‘care’
2. That NHS care services be integrated with – and managed by – the charity sector
3. Tax incentives to encourage people to contribute generously to a new National Care Service

Last time, I showed how the very rich could be incentivised by an income tax reduction to 30% subject to that sum being matched by a donation to the National Care Service (NCS). One ‘reward’ would be the allocation of naming rights to NCS homes, wings and wards.

Now, in this post, I will show how everybody can contribute to the NCS every day.

Let me start with an observation I made to the Department of Health several years ago:

As part of a successful professional project, I pointed out how surprising it is that, rather like the ‘iron curtain’ that isolated the old communist bloc, there is a ‘hospital curtain’ around the NHS.

What did I mean by this?

From a marketing perspective, there are two things about the NHS that make it different.

For any other business, professional marketing people can identify and profile the ‘consumers’ of that business. We call it the ‘target audience’. When the target audience buy the product, they become ‘customers’. When they become customers, we can define when and how they ‘consume’, the product. This helps define the marketing strategy.

The NHS is different isn’t it?

The NHS does not know who is going to be sick or what treatment they will need or when they will need it. Thus, uniquely, the target audience of the NHS is ‘everybody, all of the time’.

Yet, bizarrely for an organisation that employs over 1.7million people – and which all of us are likely to need at some time or another – there is remarkably little activity about the NHS outside the NHS.

To demonstrate this point to the Department of Health, I walked from Tooting Bec Underground station to St George’s Hospital, not much more than a mile away. There were seventeen – yes, seventeen – NHS touch points on the way: pharmacies, opticians, GP surgeries, chiropodists etc.

But there was not one NHS sign at not one of these places. As far as the NHS is concerned, you might as well now know they are there – or that there is busy activity going on every day.

How is such an enormous organisation so invisible in the community?

Well, I expect the answer is that, because it is funded by central taxation, the NHS becomes and expectation rather than a want. And when you do not need medical treatment, you do not want to think about when you do, do you?

Let’s park this thinking for a moment and talk about the National Lottery.

You may not be a Tory and you might not have voted for John Major. For me, having voted both Labour and Conservative in my time, John Major is one of the few politicians whom I am prepared to concede is â€˜a good blokeâ€™ with his heart in the right place.

And John Major did do one thing that has changed our lives and improved society.

He launched the National Lottery.

Since 1994, National Lottery has raised over Â£32billion for good causes, including Â£2.2billion for the Olympics. According to the Guardian – Give John Major the credit he’s due – ‘the National Lottery has transformed British sport’.

How can we learn from the lessons of the Lottery, and the human insights I have provided, to help us transform the ‘care’ (as opposed to the medical ‘treatment’) of our citizens?

I have touched on this before but, when I was brought up in Hong Kong, there was a national charity called the Community Chest. Everybody knew about it. Everyone bought into it.

The Community Chest was so heavily advertised I can recall the corny jingle decades later:

Give, give, give to the Community ChestGive, give, give and they will do the restGive, give, give just as much as you canGive, give, give to help your fellow man. If youâ€™re from the East, if youâ€™re from the West,Help your neighbours with the Community Chest.Give, give, give to help the sick and the poorGive, give, give and then just give some more.

Now, today, the time has come for us to launch another National Lottery, along the lines of the Community Chest, which can act as the ‘central bank’ for the new charity-managed National Care Service.

The National Care Lottery or, if you like, the Community Chest will be different from the National Lottery in that donations can be made straight into the fund without buying a lottery ticket including, for example, the following ‘usage occasions’:

– if you have been well treated by the NHS, as a gesture of thanks, you will be encouraged to make a donation into the Community Chest at collection points at every NHS touch point, including GP surgeries and on every high street.

– the charities which manage care homes and services under the NCS will be encouraged to organise local fund-raising initiatives and events.

– a Community Chest â€˜promptâ€™ for every payment at every chip & pin device at every point of sale in the country (this is technologically possible, as I know from a client I have worked with in this area).

– an advertising campaign encouraging, for every bet made between two people, the substitution of “if you do that, I’ll give x pounds to charity … ” with “if you do that, I’ll give x pounds to the Community Chest”?

In contrast to the hospital curtain around the NHS, and alongside the tax breaks that will be developed, this continuous and ongoing engagement with the Community Chest will be something we can all buy into, all of the time.

This is the only way we will be able to protect the ‘free at the point of delivery’ NHS principles.

In conclusion, I accept the insights and ideas I have put forward in my last four posts might benefit from development and refinement. But I am convinced, even as a lonely blogger, that a more professional – and more creative – approach is required to resolve the core issues facing the NHS and care in this country.

Since I started this blog, I have promoted my view that, in society, we are all consumers – and that professional marketing and advertising, and ‘upstream creative thinking’, could be better employed for the good of society as a whole. All of us.

Since I started this blog, I have promoted my view that, in society, we are all consumers – and that professional marketing and advertising, and ‘upstream creative thinking’, could be better employed for the good of society as a whole. All of us.

In 2008, a new book about marketing theory called Nudge was published. It showed how ‘behavioural insights’ could influence human behaviour.

In 2010, aÂ Nudge Unit was established at the Cabinet Office ‘to use behavioural economics and market signals to persuade citizens to behave in a more socially integrated way.’

Critics such as Dr Tammy Boyce of The King’s Fund, said: ‘We need to move away from short-term, politically motivated initiatives such as the ‘nudging people’ idea, which are not based on any good evidence and don’t help people make long-term behaviour changes.’

Well, I hope Dr Boyce and The King’s Fund will like the nudge I am about to reveal.

Why?

One word: funding.

Separate ‘treatment’ from ‘care’

In my last two posts, I proposed splitting the NHS into two services:

– ‘treatment’ would remain the responsibility of the NHS.

– ‘care’ would be the responsibility of a newly launched ‘National Care Service’ (NCS).

The reason for needing to do this is clear:

The post-war Bevan model, where the NHS is funded by National Insurance contributions, is bust. As currently financed, the NHS is doomed. New thinking is required. So is new money.

I propose that delivery of new National Care Service be managed by the charity sector, financed by both central government money and charitable donations.

Why?

One word: funding.

A behavioural insight applied to the NHS

When you think about it, the NHS has a hospital curtain around it.

Walk around and you don’t see much NHS do you? Step inside a hospital and there’s all sorts going on. Inside GP surgeries, the walls are swathed in NHS posters and leaflets. Outside, there are hardly any.

And yes, after a successful operation, you may have paid for the NHS through taxation, but have you ever donated money back by way of thanks to the heroic doctors and nurses who treated you?

You haven’t have you?

This needs to change.

As I showed in my last post, in Britain we are a very charitable people. Our charities raise over Â£60billion a year.

The NHS is funded by taxation which the UK Government take from working people. On the other hand, people give to charity.

We need to encourage the spirit of giving into the ‘care’ of our people.

Why?

One word: funding.

A call to ‘charitise’ all NHS care services

Privatising NHS services is politically sensitive. I am not calling for privatisation.

I am calling for all NHS care services to be split off from the NHS and ‘charitised’.

This would require them to be managed by independent charities in the not-for-profit charitable sector and overseen by the new ‘National Care Service’ (NCS) and thus by the new ‘Department of Charities and Care’ (DOCC).

Why?

One word: funding.

The National Care Service (NCS)

‘Treatment’ would be provided by the NHS; itÂ would continue to be ‘free at the point of delivery’; and it would continue to be funded by central taxation.

‘Care’ would be provided by the new National Care Service (NCS) and managed by specialist charities in specific areas of medical speciality i.e. ‘cancer’, ‘strokes’, ‘paraplegia’, ‘age’ etc.

Like ‘treatment’, ‘care’ will also be ‘free at the point of delivery’ and funded by a combination of central taxation and charitable donations. If you can afford the care you need, you will be asked to make a donation – but you won’t be forced to.

Raising money from charitable donations to the NCS will become a major national initiative. Everyone, the whole population, will be asked to contribute in one way or another, in terms of time and/or money, including – perhaps especially – the very rich.

Nudge the rich

I know some very rich people. In fact, if over Â£100million counts, some obscenely rich people. They are not thieves. Nor are they evil. Most of them are driven. Many of them are socially aware. Some of them even do good things for other people.

All of them are obsessed by earning money. None like giving it away. When asked to do so, they apply the same rigour, and forensic eye for detail, to spending money as they did to earning it.

Very rich people don’t like paying tax. Why would they? Knowing money as they do, they can see the inefficiencies in the way public funds are managed and spent and wasted away.

Like it or not, very wealthy people are very smart people. Smarter than our politicians. Not such good degrees, perhaps. But smarter. More nous. And harder. More ruthless. Over-tax them and you will turn them away. Engage with them, cuddle up to them, and you have more of a chance.

One idea would be to provide an income tax option for highest rate tax payers whereby, rather than pay tax at 45%, they are given the option of paying 30% as long as they match that sum with a donation to a recognised charity for the management of care within the new National Care Service.

Boost their egos, and the very rich might donate even more than this. The key thing, with the very rich, is not to take their money but to make them want to give.

Another way to inspire rich people to give money to charity is to appeal their vanity.

We need to develop a programme of ‘naming rights’ whereby large donors to the new National Care Service can, if they like, have their donations publicly recognised by naming wards, wings and whole care homes named after these people.

We need to engage them with local communities and specific causes (cancer etc).

As I demonstrated in my last post, the UK charity sector is highly fragmented.

The whole thing needs to be pulled together, joined up, so all the time spent by heroic volunteers, and money spent equally heroic donors, adds up to more than the sum of the parts.

It can be done.

Yes it can.

And please don’t think donations to the new NCS will be restricted to the very rich. All of us, however poor, will be encouraged to donate money and contribute to the NCS too.

Terra Firma bought Four Seasons from Royal Bank of Scotland for Â£825million two years ago. Now: ‘The plan would see the company divided into three: an arm to deal with NHS patients; one to handle paying customers; and another to focus on brain injuries and mental health.’

I do not understand this. Why the distinction between ‘NHS patients’ and ‘paying customers’?

All in all, based this week’s news alone, I think we can say NHS care is a mess.

The NHS – ‘treatment’ and ‘care’

Society in the 21st Century has developed to the extent that ‘care’ is our fastest growing, and most expensive, social need.

As an issue, ‘care’ needs to be addressed far more radically and creatively than it is now.

Further, as discussed in my last post, the better the NHS is at ‘treatment’, the more ‘care’ it will create.

Is the role of the NHS to ‘care’ for all of us all of the time for all time?

Is this what it was set up to achieve?

There are people who think that, because it is called the National ‘Health’ Service, the NHS should focus on keeping people healthy – avoiding, rather than treating, illness. I have met people in the Department of Health who hold this view.

In one sense it makes sense. The healthier we are, the less likely we are to get sick.

But surely this misses the point? The NHS was not established to be some sort of national health club. The NHS is ‘doctors and nurses’ – not ‘fitness instructors’ and ‘nutritionists’.

In this interesting lecture, ‘The Origins of the NHS‘, by Professor Virginia Berridge, it is clear that the original aim of the NHS was pure and simple – ‘better access to hospital treatment’:

‘Then came the Labour victory of 1945 and the NHS Act of May 1946. Bevan espoused the nationalization of the hospitals (state ownership and control under appointed local bodies) rather than local authority control which had been Labour Party policy until then.’

This is what we want the NHS for:

– when we feel sick, to see a GP (quickly and efficiently)

– if we need to go to hospital, to go to hospital (quickly and efficiently)

– in emergency, to get to A&E (quickly and efficiently)

The job of the NHS is to make sick people better – to provide ‘treatment’ – not to be some sort of all-encompassing health care advisor and provider.

The National Care Service (NCS)

So, what to do with patients who have needed ‘treatment’, but now need ‘care’?

We spend Â£110billion a year on the NHS but, when it comes to ‘care’, as the Chief Executive of NHS England said: ‘radical change is needed.’

I am calling for the launch of a new ‘National Care Service (NCS)’ in Britain.

And a wholesale engagement with the ‘charity’ sector.

How come?

Engagement with charities

We Brits are a very charitable people.

‘Charity UK‘ is an extraordinary thing. We have 164,097 charities. Total funds raised is over Â£60billion a year – enough to fill the hole in the NHS budget for the next ten years.

Here is a list of our top 1,000 charities. They are an eclectic bunch. Amongst them are Macmillan Cancer Support, the Alzheimer’s Society, the Stroke Association and Age UK.

If you had any of these illnesses – following your treatment by the NHS – wouldn’t you rather be cared for by specialists in the field and alongside other patients with the same problems as you?

For all the major illnesses – cancer, dementia, diabetes etc – I would like to see specialist centres of excellence – and care homes if necessary – managed by charities on a national and local basis.

These would be independent of the NHS and, like the NHS, not-for-profit but, unlike the NHS, with the professionalism and expertise of any top commercial organisation.

Funding? Please do not be put off. I will discuss funding in my next two posts.

I have bold, new, creative, society-changing ideas to reveal.

Charity in the UK

According to the Charities Commission, our top 1.2% of charities are responsible for 69.4% of funds raised.

Amazingly, the bottom 75% of all UK charities raise only 3.4% of total funds. Or, to put it another way, the smallest 123,179 charities raise Â£2.172billion.

Whereas the top 1,990 charities had an annual income to Sept 2014 of Â£44.68billion, no less.

These larger charities are managed by highly qualified professionals who would do a far better and more efficient job in managing ‘care’ than the mess we have now.

Funding? Please do not be put off. I will discuss funding in my next two posts.

I have bold, new, creative, society-changing ideas to reveal.

Department of Charities and Care (DOCC)

I propose a radical new initiative which, in its boldness and ambition, may be as great as the foundation of the NHS itself.

I am calling for the launch of a new Government Ministry to be called Department of Charities and Care (DOCC).

The new ‘National Care Service’ (NCS) would report in to DOCC, just as the NHS reports in to the Department of Health (DOH).

If this creates ‘competition’ and ‘tension’ between the two NHS and NCS services and the two DOH and DOCC departments, then so much the better. They won’t like it, but the DOH and the NHS need to be challenged by better organised, professionally managed ‘competitors’. From competition, accountability and improved performance must ensue.

Funding? Please do not be put off yet. I will discuss funding in my next two posts.

As a country, the NHS is the biggest issue we face. If we leave it to the politicians – you know, the people who don’t know that invoices for Â£1.7billion are coming through the door – the NHS could bankrupt us.

As a country, the NHS is the biggest issue we face. If we leave it to the politicians – you know, the people who don’t know that invoices for Â£1.7billion are coming through the door – the NHS could bankrupt us.

Bizarrely, we all know this could happen.

But no one knows what to do about it – or has the guts to take the decisions that need taking.

There are two irreconcilable forces:

‘Free at the point of delivery’ is economically unaffordable. There is a ‘funding gap’ which is predicted to rise to Â£30billion by 2020 and Â£60billion by 2025.

‘Private sector funding’ is politically unacceptable. What a furore Farage caused last week by his suggestion that the NHS be managed by a ‘US style insurance based system’!

So.

Creative thinking is required.

But, as the most creative country in the world, have we engaged our most talented creative thinkers to develop new ideas to resolve this dilemma?

Er no.

As ever, all manner of ‘stakeholders’ have had a say but our best creative brains – the people most qualified to crack this problem – are left in the cold.

So, as someone who has become a bit of an expert in the NHS over the last ten years, I am going to apply some ‘upstream creative thinking’ to all this and sort it out it myself. No, really. Please don’t worry. It’s no problem. Really it isn’t. It’s what I do.

First, I must urge the nation to reconsider my posts of 6 June 2011 and 27 February 2012:

These posts show that – if properly thought through – private sector funding could be introduced to the NHS without losing control of quality of service (or, more pertinently to some, without making other people, especially foreigners, rich at the UK taxpayer’s expense).

There is no doubt that, like RBS and the NatWest, ‘shared ownership’ would be a better way.

Let’s park that thought.

Why be better when you could be even better?

Is there a yet more radical, more creative, solution?

If so, where to start?

When facing creative challenges like this, the hard work comes at the beginning. It is necessary to ruthlessly examine all the facts, to be objective about all the vested interests and to dig deep, and then deeper still, in search of the truth.

You will find all creative people go through this process – musicians, artists, scientists and, yes, even advertising people. To achieve greatness in their chosen fields, they all need to ruthlessly interrogate the truth they seek in order to present their reinterpretation in an original way.

So what is the truth behind the NHS ‘problem’?

How did it get like this?

Well, like all things which are true, once you find the truth, it seems ludicrously simple. You wonder how human beings have allowed things to become so complicated.

Because of this, in the case of the NHS, I do not need to take you though all the boring background arguments, the tedious political posturing.

For you know the truth already.

The truth is that, for the NHS to have survived so long, it has, by definition, been doomed.

Here’s how it is:

The more people you ‘cure’, the more you have to ‘care’ for.

As medical science has advanced, it follows that people who can now be treated and ‘cured’ today, would, in previous generations, not have been cured and would not have survived. They would have died. And, because they would have died, they would not need to be cared for.

Thus, to a large extent by its own success, the NHS, which started life as a treatment based ‘medical service‘ for people who are ill, has become an extended ‘care service‘ for people who are not as ill as they were.

Because of medical science, some people who need care need it on a very long term basis. And it is this that the NHS cannot afford.

Thus the creative solution for the NHS is to redefine itself in terms of treatment and care.

This thought may seem simple.

It is also very radical.

Once you have taken it on board, further creative thinking can be developed so that both of these elements of healthcare (‘health’ and ‘care’) can be redefined and restructured, medically and financially, to achieve a national health service that works – and that we can afford.

My recommendations on how to achieve this goal will be revealed in my forthcoming posts.

For the first time in over a year, he could lie in late in bed. Time to rest from the hassles of home. Phew. Two weeks alone on the Greek Island he loved and

Bang! Bang! ‘Cleaning!’

Bang! Bang! ‘Cleaning!’

The man hauled himself out the bed and his day dreams. He grabbed his favourite kikoy from the bottom of the bed, wrapped it around the middle of his body and opened the door of his perfectly comfortable hotel room.

‘Cleaning!’

‘Now? Really? I’m tired’.

‘Cleaning!’

‘I only got here last night. The room’s fine.’

‘No speak English! Cleaning!’

One was dark haired, the other an unlikely blonde. There were no uniforms. Not here. Not in this small, lovely, informal family hotel with stunning sea views. Just two poor ladies in cheap jeans and t-shirts. Getting by. Doing a job. Unsmiling. Unmoving.

‘Ok,ok. Two minutes.’

‘Cleaning!’

Unsmiling. Unmoving.

The man raised his hand in a sign to wait and shut the door. Hurriedly, he daubed a toothbrush round his mouth and pulled on his swimming trunks. He threw sun cream, baseball cap, shades and a beach towel into a kit bag and, from the unpacked suitcase, grabbed the vital, still boxed lilo.

‘Yassu.’

The man forced a smile as he moved out of the room.

‘Yassu.’

Unsmiling, the ladies moved in.

Walking out of the building and into the sun, the man captured the perfect view of the bay as he crossed the patio to the spacious pool. He chose a sun bed and reached for the lilo. Blow, blow, blow. The familiar holiday ritual. One blow. And another. And another.

He put on the cap and the shades and grabbed the book. He dropped the towel by the pool and the lilo into it. Halfway down the steps into the cool, clean water, he turned, reached down under his legs and found the lilo with his left hand. He lowered himself onto it and launched himself backwards into the pool. The book in his right hand stayed dry. He still had it.

For over an hour he read, dozed and read on the lilo. He dreamt of what the future might hold and

‘Yak, yak! Jabber, jabber!’

‘Yak, yak! Jabber, jabber!’

The cleaning ladies were seated at a table in the restaurant by the pool. Presumably, their morning break. They smoked roll-up cigarettes and spoke loudly. Very loudly. Not Greek, but an unknown Eastern European language. They were not smiling. They were arguing. Loudly.

Around the pool, the hotel guests raised their eyebrows at each other, shook their heads and put down their books. Some questioned whether they would return to this hotel.

Fifteen minutes later, the hotel workers left their table and normal service was resumed.

And then it was time for lunch. The man found a table shaded by a large umbrella in the corner of the patio, by a wall. He ordered a Mythos beer and a Greek salad. Just what he wanted.

Looking out towards the azure sea and the clear blue sky, he swigged his beer, leant back and

He smelt a cigarette. Behind him, the blonde cleaner, also taking advantage of the shade, was sitting on the wall, not six feet away. She looked up as her friend joined her with two glasses of cola. Unsmiling, she took the cigarette from her mouth, handed it over and started rolling another. They resumed the argument. Loudly.

The man wanted to help these poor ladies.

But how could he?

]]>http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/10/29/the-importance-of-customer-service-2/feed/1How an advertising agency could help defeat Islamic Statehttp://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/10/16/how-an-advertising-agency-could-help-defeat-islamic-state/
http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/10/16/how-an-advertising-agency-could-help-defeat-islamic-state/#respondThu, 16 Oct 2014 12:41:49 +0000http://wordpress.hbpl.co.uk/adifferenthat/?p=3094On 4 October, Lord Dannatt, who was introduced as a former ‘Chief of The General Staff and Head of the Army for several years and knows the Middle East well’, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4.

]]>On 4 October, Lord Dannatt, who was introduced as a former ‘Chief of The General Staff and Head of the Army for several years and knows the Middle East well’, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4.

He said:

‘We are all united in the fact that the so called Islamic State, and these ISIL fighters, are an abomination and they have got to be confronted and they have got to be faced down….

This has to be looked at at several levels. Yes, of course there is a military level…..

One is very much on the coalition building.Â But there are other levels at which we have got to go at this.

Another is the diplomatic and political framework, particularly to get that changed in Iraq and steps are quite helpful there.

But I think the other thing is the mindset. This is – at its worst, its best, its deepest – a battle for minds here.

And although Islamic State and ISIL have got to be destroyed, they also have to be discredited. It’s got to be unattractive to young people in this country to want to go and join this movement…

We’ve got to win that battle for the hearts and minds of decent Muslim people around the world.’

The presenter asked:

‘But Governments can’t win that battle can they?‘

To which we all know the answer is ‘no’. But what politicians – and the military for that matter –Â canÂ do is engage with people who are experts in changing hearts and minds.

And, it so happens, this is something at which, in London, we are recognised being the best in the world.

Yes, these experts are called creative advertising agencies.

And yes, I accept what you may think, that much of the job of creative advertising agencies is to persuade people to change their hearts and minds about such items as margarine, confectionary, soft drinks and hamburgers by which human beings are killed in far more subtle ways than having their heads chopped off.

But, as I tried to show in my recent post about Scotland, major multinational companies spend billions of pounds a year in the business of making products people want to buy and shifting them from their factories into people’s houses. In many ways, it is what makes the world go round.

Please don’t think they do this for nothing or that they are stupid or don’t know what they are doing. Far, far more people who left university this summer wanted to join the advertising and communications business than the army.

All these people are very smart and very creative.

Which is just what this problem needs.

And please don’t tell me politicians don’t know this. When they need professionals to help change the hearts and minds of people in pursuance of their own interests and their own careers, political parties turn to advertising agencies, as the army might have it, like a shot.

So when Lord Dannatt says ‘we’ve got to win that battle for the hearts and minds of decent Muslim people around the world’, there’s only one answer.

It’s on the doorstep mate.

]]>http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/10/16/how-an-advertising-agency-could-help-defeat-islamic-state/feed/0A more creative approach to welfare reform could have saved liveshttp://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/09/25/a-more-creative-approach-to-welfare-benefits-could-have-saved-lives/
http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/09/25/a-more-creative-approach-to-welfare-benefits-could-have-saved-lives/#commentsThu, 25 Sep 2014 01:28:19 +0000http://wordpress.hbpl.co.uk/adifferenthat/?p=3072So, while the UK was talking about Scotland, someone has died:

‘Diabetic David Clapson, 59, from Stevenage, died from lack of insulin, 18 days after his Jobseeker’s Allowance was suspended in July. He was found dead in his flat on 20 July, with Â£3.44 in his bank account.’

‘All around you â€“ in this country, today â€“ the Government is testing all the people who are claiming DLA to weed out those who are cheating the system. I think we all agree with this objective. But what about the strategy that has been developed to deliver it? In particular, what about the people who are genuinely claiming this benefit? The ones who deserve it, the sick and disabled who it is there for. Those who are not on the make, but in real need.’

‘Until the Government started paying ATOS to do the job, they trusted your doctorâ€™s evidence that your disability was as you were claiming it to be. Not any more. The Government would rather trust ATOS. Surely, if doctors provide false declarations on behalf of their patients, they should be named and shamed and punished just as severely as those â€˜disabledâ€™ people who fiddle the system? Wouldnâ€™t such an outcome deter rogue doctors from providing false evidence? For some reason, we donâ€™t read about these doctors. Yet they must exist or we would not need this inhuman ATOS technology for the Government to rely on instead.’

In London, we are known to have some of the best creative advertising agencies in the world. They have a greater understanding of human behaviour than government.

To the deepest marrow of my bones, I have had no doubt whatsoever that any one of them would have found a better, more humane way of achieving this goal than has been the case.

This would have been the brief:

‘How to cut people falsely claiming disability benefit, while protecting the health (and lives) of those who really need it.’

Earlier this week, in the pub, I was asked what the subject of my next blog post would be. I mentioned the David Clapson story.

The reply was:

“Cutting down the fakers is all-important and if that costs people their lives, then this is justified in pursuit of the larger goal.”

What do I know, eh?

]]>http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/09/25/a-more-creative-approach-to-welfare-benefits-could-have-saved-lives/feed/1Why the Scots would be mad to vote for independence (not that I care)http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/09/09/why-the-scots-would-be-mad-to-vote-for-independence-not-that-i-care/
http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/09/09/why-the-scots-would-be-mad-to-vote-for-independence-not-that-i-care/#commentsTue, 09 Sep 2014 10:34:20 +0000http://wordpress.hbpl.co.uk/adifferenthat/?p=3027So, next week the Scots will decide if they want to be independent.

Let me start by declaring a lack of interest in this issue. A complete lack of interest. I think may be one-eighth Scottish but I really don’t care if I have Scottish blood coursing through my veins. It hasn’t affected my life either way.

]]>So, next week the Scots will decide if they want to be independent.

Let me start by declaring a lack of interest in this issue. A complete lack of interest. I think may be one-eighth Scottish but I really don’t care if I have Scottish blood coursing through my veins. It hasn’t affected my life either way.

I have been to Scotland a handful of times. I have watched a couple of rugby internationals in Edinburgh and stayed with some friends in the Borders which was good fun. I may have been to Glasgow once to be on local radio but I really can’t remember. Nor can I be bothered to find out. It really doesn’t matter either way.

I wonder how many Scots have heard of ‘ASEAN’?

ASEAN stands for the ‘Association of South East Asian Nations’. It is the Asian equivalent of the EU. And, Scot or not, you need to know about ASEAN. Especially now.

I worked in the ASEAN region over twenty years ago. Thailand to be precise.

In Thailand, I learnt a lesson that I would like to share with the people of Scotland. I am sure the Scots care as much about me as I do about them but, if they are prepared to consider what I have to say, they may agree that they would be mad to vote for independence next week. Not that I care if they do or not. It is nothing to do with me. As I have said.

There is a thing in marketing called distribution.

To all the world’s major marketing companies, ‘distribution’ is key to their business. Fundamental.

Now, I know it is easy to be cynical about marketing. Just as it’s easy to be cynical about lawyers or accountants. The UK government is even cynical about doctors, for goodness sake.

As the writer Charlie Kaufman said: ‘it (the world) is all marketing’.

Take it from me, your life would be a lot worse without marketing. Your quality of life would decrease. You might not survive at all.

The biggest marketing companies in the world are fmcg businesses.

The acronym ‘fmcg’ stands for fast moving consumer goods. These products are not described as ‘fast moving’ because they are jet-propelled, or laxatives. They are fast moving because they move fast off the shelves of your local supermarket. People want them. People buy them. Lots of them. Often. Every day.

Take it from me, the world’s major fmcg companies would not bother to manufacture these products without knowing how they are going to distribute them – and working out how many they are going to sell based on how often their customers will buy them.

This is a more exact science than you might think.

And it can lead to more ruthless decisions than you might like.

Let’s go back to Thailand. I wish.

For nearly three years (1988-91), in Bangkok, I managed the biggest advertising agency in Asia outside Japan – and Ogilvy & Mather’s third biggest office worldwide (bigger than London).

It was the best advertising agency I worked for. This was nothing to do with me. It was because of the Thai people who worked there. During my short tenancy, all I did was help the agency maintain the lofty status it had achieved before I arrived on the scene.

My key role was to enlighten the bosses of our multinational clients, who invariably came from the USA and Europe, on some basic realities of Thailand and the region – and encourage them to focus their investment on this important growth market.

Most of these bosses knew that the populations of China and India were, at the time, about one billion and 800 million people respectively but many of them, in those days, were ignorant of the facts contained in my first, simple PowerPoint slide.

These are just some of the countries in ASEAN. There are smaller, less populated countries too. These include Laos and Singapore but, with populations of six and five million respectively, they are not very important are they?

Now, let’s put Scotland into perspective (if you haven’t already).

Here are some population figures closer to home:

EU population (2010) – 501 million
UK population (2010) – 62 million
Scotland population (2013) – 5.2 million

We are talking about distribution. Remember?

Whenever you buy something from a shop, someone somewhere has manufactured that product, designed the packaging, printed the packaging, put the packages into boxes, loaded them onto a lorry, carried them to the shop, taken them out of their boxes and put them on shelves in shops and supermarkets up and down the land.

It is hard work making things easy for you to buy.

And, if you are in the business of making things and taking all this trouble to distribute them, it would be natural for you to not only to maximise the number of people who have the opportunity to buy your product but, at the same time, minimise the ferrying around required.

Consider this:

Scotland is a relatively large country. And sparse. The land area of Scotland is 30,265 square miles. With roughly the same population, Singapore is 276 square miles.

Have you got that? To distribute your product to five million people in Singapore you drive around town for a day. To distribute your product to five million people in Scotland would take you, what shall we say, three months?

Or shall we put it another way?

In Indonesia, there are 140 million people on the island of Java alone (get that?). The land area of Java is 53,589 square miles. So, in the three months it would take you to drive around Scotland to reach 5.2 million potential customers, you could drive round Java and reach, what shall we say, 80 million?

If you are one of the world’s largest and most important marketing companies, and the people of one of the worldâ€™s smallest and unimportant countries, like Scotland, decide to strike out on their own and, in so doing, make your life more complicated with different rules and regulations, why would you bother with them?

Great Britain – with 62 million people in 88,745 square miles? Maybe.

Scotland alone – with 5.2 million people in 30,265 square miles? Forget it man.

And don’t tell me internet and online websites like Amazon, who charge for postage & packaging, will ride over the Highlands to the lonely Scotsâ€™ rescue.

They are not going to offer free delivery to the Outer Hebrides are they? They are going to charge an independent Scotland an independent, increased rate for p&p, as with any other country.

This will happen. You mark my words.

Now, if you are a Scot with half a brain, or have any idea of how the world goes round, you don’t need to know any more, do you? You can stop reading this now. I’ve made my point.

If, however, you feel your reading of Robert the Bruce (really?) or your penchant for wearing kilts or blowing bagpipes will be any way enhanced by being an independent country – let me spell it out for you.

Just as I don’t really care whether Scotland is an independent country, the Scots may say they don’t care about the world’s biggest and important marketing companies.

This would be a naive, and potentially rather dangerous position.

I have attended meetings where these companies have developed marketing strategies and plans to maximise their sales to the massive populations in Asia. There are too many customers to ignore, aren’t there?

Still donâ€™t care? Well, Scotland, you didnâ€™t know Pepsi own Quaker Oats did you? Or that Quaker Oats, and therefore Pepsi, owns Scott’s Porage Oats? In fact, Pepsi own a mill in your country, in Cupar, which you are about to provide an excuse to close down. Them’s great oats in the USofA!

Believe me, in the modern world, you cannot live without these companies.

I have no idea whether the worldâ€™s biggest marketing companies have any fall-back plans for Scotland. No doubt they will wait and see what happens next week.

Nor have I bothered to read and watch the politicians ranting and raving about this referendum. As history has shown, politicians are the last people who can predict the consequences of their actions. Especially politicians who rant and rave.

In fact, I suspect all this is a career move by a politician with a surname one letter from mine. We havenâ€™t seen the Scots marching and rioting in the street on this issue, have we? Or anyone jump in front of a galloping horse? Where has all this come from?

Deluded, delusional politicians are a very dangerous breed.

For if, down the line, their politicians persuade the Scots to launch their own currency or, like Ireland, join the Euro, these kind of manoeuvres will add to the inconvenience of Scotland being part of any company’s marketing plans and increase the possibility of Scotland being ignored as some irrelevant little outpost.

If the Scots vote for independence or, one might say, isolation, making Scotland too much of a hassle to deal with, the big fmcg companies of the world could easily:

– increase their prices to levels only rich Scots can afford

– not bother to distribute their products to Scotland at all

If this happens, it would result in:

– the shops and supermarket shelves in Scotland becoming empty and deserted

– the Scottish people living a dirty, smelly, hungry life in poverty and misery

I accept that, in this day and age, such desperate repercussions may be unlikely but why risk it? Either way, I have no doubt the costs of living in rural Scotland are bound to increase in an independent Scotland. Independence will give all suppliers an excuse to review their distribution arrangements to maximise their bottom line.

Mark my words, when the time comes, the food, personal care and household product companies of the world will make cold, rational, ruthless business decisions.

There wonâ€™t be any emotions involved.

They wonâ€™t care.

]]>http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/09/09/why-the-scots-would-be-mad-to-vote-for-independence-not-that-i-care/feed/5When all you can do is play the ball that is bowled to youhttp://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/08/31/when-all-you-can-do-is-play-the-ball-thats-bowled-to-you/
http://adifferenthat.brandrepublic.com/2014/08/31/when-all-you-can-do-is-play-the-ball-thats-bowled-to-you/#respondSun, 31 Aug 2014 22:45:48 +0000http://wordpress.hbpl.co.uk/adifferenthat/?p=3008To many of us, especially those of us who lived through those days, the TV seriesÂ Mad MenÂ has been essential viewing. We have come to know the character Don Draper, played byÂ John Hamm, like a friend. And now, this week, Hamm’s new filmÂ Million Dollar ArmÂ has come to London. And it’s about cricket! Wahaay! Have the Americans seen the light?

]]>To many of us, especially those of us who lived through those days, the TV seriesÂ Mad MenÂ has been essential viewing. We have come to know the character Don Draper, played byÂ John Hamm, like a friend. And now, this week, Hamm’s new filmÂ Million Dollar ArmÂ has come to London. And it’s about cricket! Wahaay! Have the Americans seen the light?

Now, if you don’t play cricket, I am sorry. Please bear with me. Who knows, the lesson in this post might change your life, just as a cricket ball can end it.

For, if you do play cricket, you will know that batting is a dangerous pastime. And it can be a mental disaster. It’s ok once you are ‘in’ and have scored some runs. You have become used to the pace of the pitch, experienced the speed and guile of the bowlers and mapped the positioning of the fielders. The longer you bat, the more relaxed you become.

But, every time you bat, your first ball is nightmare. As you stand there, nervously watching the bowler charging towards you, you have no idea what to expect or whether you will be up to the task ahead. No one has said anything or done anything to you. Nor have you done anything to them. Your only job is toÂ stand and look. But your brain is scrambled. You wonder if your feet are in the right place, your knees sufficiently bent, your back straight, your head at the right angle, the bat in your hands pointing in the right direction and your eyes are working.

Sometimes, it seems, they are not. For there are times, as I myself can testify, when your first ball is unleashed at you at such a ferocious pace that, quite simply, you do not see it. There is the whirling of a white-clothed human being twenty two yards ahead of you; a blurred vision of something red rocketing towards your face and whooshing past your nose; an eerie, evil whirrÂ as the seam of the ball rotates and hurtles through the whistling air; and a sharp smack as it bullets into the gloves of the wicketkeeper behind you. Then comes the humiliation of a knowing, gloating, smirking, superior guffaw from the fielders as they confirm something you thought only you knew. You haven’t seen the ball at all.

Then, horror of horrors, within a minute, in less than sixty seconds, the same thing, the same sheer terror, will be unleashed at you again. To the amateur player, the village cricketer, the brain becomes more scrambled, the self-doubt more exaggerated, the fear more extreme. Will the next ball be as fast as the last? Will it hit me? Should I take a different stance? Stand further back in the crease? Get my head straighter? Â Raise my bat less far in the backlift? Was that last ball really that quick? What if I don’t see it again? What am I doing here? Am I good enough?

Professional cricketers, people who are really good at batting, who know what they are doing, who, perhaps, have got their head together, are different. They don’t have these feelings of self doubt. Whether by nature or training or both, they have the ability, and the mental strength, to put the last ball behind them. What has just happened will have no impact on what is about to happen. They wipe it from the memory. It is in the past. Gone. Good cricketers play the ball that is bowled to them.

This summer, one of my oldest and closest friends, and as it happens one of the best cricketers I have played with, was not appointed to a job on which he had set his heart. He works in a place where he has dedicated his entire working life. For the last few years, he has been a worthy and successful number two in the batting order. Now, on the retirement of the number one, many of us who are stakeholders in this business justifiably expected him to progress smoothly and seamlessly into the top spot. And with this important job would come respect, status, a feeling of achievement, of a life well spent.

But my friend missed out. Another guy was selected. Someone from outside the business. Someone none of us know or, frankly, care about. Now, I must not be unfair to this guy. I wasn’t on the selection panel or part of the process. It may be he is a worthy candidate. Indeed it must be. He may have qualities I have not seen. Indeed he must have. But he isÂ new. And ‘new’ is a risk isn’t it? It must be.

It never ceases to amaze me how often this happens, how few leaders of organisations ‘grow their own successor’, as my advertising guru David Ogilvy used to say (no mad man he).

Soon after I started my career at his agency, then known as Ogilvy & Mather, our chairman retired. His successor, Peter Warren, who had worked for Ogilvy man-and-boy, having started in the post room, eased himself seamlessly into the chair. Michael Baulk, also Ogilvy man-and-boy, smoothed into the role of Managing Director.

Baulk and Warren became the dream team. So much so that they were poached by Abbott Mead Vickers – still, twenty years later as AMV BBDO, the biggest advertising agency in London. I remember being amazed that O&M let this happen. I suspect it must have been something to do with share options or performance bonuses, but someone let them go. Â At what price? Why grow your own talent all the way to the top and then let it slip away, as has just happened to my friend? This, surely, is madness.

For, needless to say, O&M replaced Baulk and Warren with ‘outside’ appointments who in the eyes of many, not least me, were a disaster. A unique corporate culture that had been grown and nurtured and cherished over decades disappeared down the Thames.

And what about the big wide world outside advertising? Next year, after the General Election, how many of the new Cabinet will be qualified to become ministers of government? What, for example, if a deal has to be done with Ukip? Will these appointments be made on merit or political expediency? Or will these people have been grown, nurtured, into their jobs? I think we know the answer.

So what of my friend?

I can’t help feeling a mistake has been made. But this won’t help him will it? In terms of the top job, he has been given out. And, as my dad used to say, once you’re out, you’re out.

However, while many of us moan and groan from our fielding positions of ignorance on the outside of this decision, and knowing him as I do, my friend’s stance will be solid, his bat straight, his head held high, his eyes focussed on the track ahead …